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CDC: Americans Getting Heavier, Average Woman Weighs As Much As 1960s Man
schwit1 writes: New statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the average American has packed on the pounds in the past 50 years. Both men and women have gained a considerable amount of weight since 1960, with the average American woman now weighing 166.2 pounds — nearly identical to what American men weighed in the 1960s. U.S. men have been getting bigger too, gaining nearly 30 pounds from the 1960s to 2010 — 166.3 pounds to 195.5 pounds today. The good news is that both sexes have gained almost an inch in height since then, so that accounts for some of the overall weight gain.
It should be noted that the average US male (5'10" vs. 5'8") and female (5'5" vs. 5'3") in 2015 are both two inches taller than their 1960 counterparts. Based on the cube law, you'd expact the average female weight to have increased almost 10% as a result ((65/63)^3 = 1.098).
Increased height accounts for more than half of the weight gain noted in the study.
the corn subsidies and the silly food pyramid.
We eat too much, we exercise too little, and we eat the wrong things.
More fruits, veg, and yes meat... and less starchy food.
As to getting people to move their fat asses every so often... good luck with that.
My ultimate solution to all this is massive genetic engineering.
First there's no reason we couldn't make our staple crops more nutritious. If we can put beta carotene in the rice of third world farmers just imagine what we could do with our OWN food. You could turn your staple crop of choice into a fucking multivitamin.... shift the resources in it to fats and proteins. And that is just the ONE crop.
A more reeasonable way to do it would be to have about 20 different breeds of wheat etc and have each one have its own special characteristics. THEN you just blend them together in the desired ratios at the flour mill. The health nuts will blend their own and most people will be happy with a standard blend.
We can also do stuff like change gultin to something else that people aren't sometimes allergic to.
Then of course there is the human body. The body does not NEED exercise to build muscle. It is TRIGGERED to build muscle by exercise. Those triggers can be adjusted. Ideally you want them to be related to food intake. If in some future we go into famine, the body must not keep assuming it has access to our 21st century food supply. It has to adapt. And of course, if you're getting lots of food, the body shouldn't stock pile excessive amounts of fat but rather build up some healthy muscle.
On top of that, we should awaken the portions of our genes that permit regeneration. Currently we have only a few parts of our bodies that regenerate. The intestines for example still regenerate. But there is no reason it couldn't grow new internal organs, grow new limbs, grow new eyes, new ears, regenerate nerves, etc.All of that is latent in our biology.
And while we're doing that... how about raise the standard human IQ to something less obnoxiously pitiful. Because boy oh boy are there are a lot of morons.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Honestly 90% of what we consumer is not food but just piles of sugar coated shit.
Stop eating at any restaurants, Stop eating anything that comes in a box or Bag. Hell even our bread is so sweet that most europeans call it cake.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The summary mentioned a height increase but only of an inch and only account for 10% of the gain, not two inches and half of the gain as the person you were responding to noting. If nothing else he was correcting a bad summary.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
World Health Organization (WHO) global data by country
Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
If her name was Caitlyn and she had big manly hands, it's likely your average woman WAS a 1960s man.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Obesity is most common with the working poor. It's not too surprising. Cheap junk food and TV is about the only pleasure they have left what with smoking being a no-no
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The one-inch gain in height was dwarfed (so to speak) by the six-inch gain in heights listed on online dating sites.
Well, weight training "adds weight" (muscle), but in most normal cases (other than low fat people who train very hard), i.e., overweight/obese people, it helps lowering their weight since the muscle they build burns fat even while not exercising (just by existing at rest).
Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
Don't worry, continentals. You'll be catching up to us soon: http://qz.com/89553/europeans-...
Well, at least your wine, beer and cheese is better... oh wait, it's not.
http://www.worldbeercup.org/wi...
Significant to have scientifically sound data, yes.
Significant to understand the problem, no. I just have to take a look outside to realize that even adjusted for muscle mass/body fat percentage would be an insignificant ripple in the data.
In the age of cheap body fat % measuring devices, why not make body fat % the standard? I'm tall and borderline overweight according to BMI, but I have about 14% body fat percentage. It's much easier to compare across body types with that metric than BMI. Yet I've never had a doctor record my body fat %, only height and weight.
A World Beer Cup where only a fraction of breweries outside of the USA participate in?
Look at the list of participants, for instance for Belgium only 27 breweries (some of which are owned by the same company) are listed, that's like one sixth of the Belgian breweries only.
"U.S. men have been getting bigger too, gaining nearly 30 pounds from the 1960s to 2010"
Pfftph! I've gained 30 pounds in the last 2 years.
We have been feeling the fallout of Redit drama for a while now. How many articles on how we need more women in STEM have we had in the last 6 months?
My wife has a bachelors in mechanical engineering from MIT and works in a field that uses her degree. She has told me that she's tired of hearing "STEM" as it always seems to come from people that do not hold any degree in the hard sciences, or in technology, or in engineering, or in mathematics. If they want to push for people to get degrees in these fields, then they should put their money, time, and energy where their mouth is and go back and get a degree from among those kinds, then start advocating for it once they really know what they're advocating for.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Americans are used to eating shitty food, and lots of it. But there is also the issue of .. tobacco smoking. Every time I go to Europe, I see that nearly every second person, men and women, smoke all the time. Tobacco is a great appetite inhibitor. I recall that when I myself quit smoking, I might have gained something like 15-20 pounds of weight, real fast. I have some friends from eastern Europe, and they're skinny as hell, and they also smoke. They're doctors, and whenever I start discussion the effect of smoking on health with them, they tell me they only smoke in the evening, yet the over the top filled ashtrays everywhere in their homes suggest otherwise. Despite some of the bad health/eating habits, the war on smoking is something that Americans are 10-20 years ahead of most Europe, depending on where you live, and that could possibly have some effect on the weight Americans.
When it comes to online discussions regarding obesity, ~50% of commenters are unfairly evaluated hulking muscular athletic edge cases.
More like muscles are high upkeep so you have to exercise to keep them, if you just asked a muscular guy to not exercise he wouldn't lose much weight. In fact unless he adjusted his eating habits he'd be a lot more likely to gain weight. And if you reward yourself with junk food and snacks after exercise it won't do you any good at all. There's three very good effects though:
1) If you're already on a healthy diet it's easier to exercise more than reduce intake even further.
2) The ratio of muscles to fat is improved, giving you more strength to carry less.
3) Muscle is denser, even if you're not lighter you'll be slimmer with less flopping around.
The first one is as simple that the body needs a good fuel mix, it doesn't work well on pure fat. So you have to eat a minimum and if you eat more and exercise you can burn away the fat portion without undernourishing yourself. The second and third basically makes you feel and look better, which is probably just as much the point as the number on a scale.
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